This well-detailed infographic from HostPapa provides more insight into how each medium – email or social media – should be utilized rather than whether one is a substitute for the other. They’re simply not. You should not be doing one or the other – you should be focused on doing both effectively.
- 75% of all adults express email is their preferred communication method
- Even among the 18-29 age group, email trumps social for commercial usage
While the infographic promotes email marketing as the winner, I don’t believe there should be a winner. They’re two types of mediums with very different opportunities. Email is a push medium where a company can send a message to a recipient when they’d like to. Social is a pull medium where you put the message out and hope that someone reads and responds (or shares).
My personal opinion is that no company should be applying resources in social media without having an effective email program first. This way… as prospects find you on social media and subscribe to your email, you can push them a message down the road that drives them to a conversion.
I don’t buy that social is ‘pull’ when it’s still broadcasting out on a channel hoping it’ll get noticed.
Hi Andy,
It’s broadcasting but in a series of updates that hope to ‘pull’ prospects and customers back to your site. A status update, a bookmark, a tweet… all of them are published out there with the hopes of ‘pulling’ people in. Email, one the other hand, pushes your message to the person. It’s not all black and white, I’ll admit… but there is a difference.
Thanks for joining the conversation!
Doug
Got it. You’re qualifying social as more ‘public’ since it’s less private than the direct-to-inbox channel.
I agree.
Are we OK to embed this on our own blogs. It’s really a great infographic.
With attribution to the sources!
I found the embed codes at HostPapa. Thanks for sharing.
Interesting post, Douglas. It really seems to come down to the fact that
email is the most business-like medium. Many businesses don’t really
find their clients or potential clients off social media, particularly
businesses with a long sales cycle.
And business people are driven like slaves by their inboxes, for better or worse.